At the center of Central Michigan's remade defense is a new, aggressive ethos

Mt. Pleasant — Defensive coordinator Sean Cronin knows what the best defenses in college football look like, because he’s seen them up close. 

From 2006-08, Cronin served as a graduate assistant coach serving on the defensive side at Florida under defensive coordinator Charlie Strong and head coach Urban Meyer. In 2006, Florida posted the No. 6 scoring defense, nationally and finished at No. 4 in 2008. The Gators won the national title in both of those seasons. An anonymous cog in the machine then, Cronin embarked on a decades-long career on college sidelines that led him to Mt. Pleasant now and the helm of the Chippewas defense. 

And he’s got a simple desire for his unit in 2025.

“They should be able to play super fast and be super aggressive and know exactly what they're doing,” Cronin said.

With experienced players littering the depth chart, the foundation for a solid unit existed when new defensive Cronin took over as part of head coach Matt Drinkall’s staff. There wasn’t a need to tear anything down to the studs or dramatically alter the scheme, but an opportunity to push the envelope. And, working ahead of the curve to an extent, the Chippewas 2025 defense is setting out to be a game-changing force this year by being disruptive and dictating terms to offenses.  

“Even in our base calls, our base stuff, you know, we just wanted to do our job, we wanted to dominate the person in front of us,” senior linebacker Jordan Kwiatkowski said. “So being able to do that as a defense is gonna be really big for us. And I thought we're making really, really big strides at that.”

Given how 2024 went for the Chippewas defense, a new coat of paint is needed. 

The unit finished in the middle of the pack in the MAC in terms of scoring and total defense, but was among the worst teams in the conference and country when it came to turnovers. In 2024, Central Michigan managed just five takeaways (no other MAC team had fewer than 10) and finished with a minus-17 turnover margin, second-worst nationally. 

From that unit, Central Michigan brought back its share of talented players, though, and more than half of its regular starters. From a pair of defensive ends — Michael Heldman and Kade Kostus — that each started 12 games last season to a secondary brimming with experience to a linebacking corps led by the super-productive Kwiatkowski, there was no shortage of raw material to work with.

And the returning core of the defense has been accentuated by some key transfers, like cornerback Kalen Carroll, safeties Maddix Blackwell and Elijah Gordon and a trio of defensive linemen: Dylan Fisher, Daniel Viramontes and Korver Demma.

So to bring it all together and set the course right in Year 1, Cronin is instilling a new, aggressive ethos for the defense, one built on the idea of being the unit on the field that shapes the course of the game, not the offense.

“Any down, any call we get, we wanna do our — put our best foot forward to get after the offense,” Kwiatkowski said.

The most basic pathway to unleash defensive aggression that can flip games is blitzing, bringing down extra rushers to blow up runs and create negative plays in the passing game. But there is more to the ethos that Cronin is instilling, though the Chippewas will surely be blitzing. 

At core of the new attacking mindset for Central Michigan’s defense in 2025 is to get each player on board with going after their own assignment with fervor, intensity and focus, and to know that the things that short-circuit offenses aren't just sending extra rushers. 

“We might show like we're coming from somewhere and we're coming from somewhere else,” redshirt senior safety Caleb Spann said. “We always have a guy somewhere near the ball or have a different responsibility that offensive lineman can't really point out or the quarterback can't really see.”

And while the underpinnings of the defensive scheme haven’t been drastically altered, Cronin and his staff are steadily adding these layers of complexity. 

These looks might be outright blitzes or some complex coverages, but much of it is quite simple at its core, and doesn’t ask players to get outside their comfort zone. In general, the players feel like they’re being put in advantageous positions, not just being put in roles they might be comfortable in, but can thrive and make plays in.

Because in disrupting an offense, sometimes the illusion of complexity or aggression is as good as the real thing. 

“It might look difficult to a quarterback, but to us you have — you're keying one thing and you have one job,” Blackwell said. “As long as everyone does their job, then we'll be fine. The coaches have made that easy.”

Not getting too exotic also prevents confusing defenders or clouding their minds with calls when they should be executing their assignment. It’s a delicate balance between how many play calls to have and how complex they can get before players' heads start spinning. 

Cronin recently loaded up the defense with some new looks, so he was understanding after a practice on Saturday in which the defense played from behind the eight ball in an extended 11-on-11 live period. Regardless, he remained confident they’re at a good spot on their learning curve. 

And while the complexities and the wrinkles of the scheme will surely come along in good time for the Chippewas, Cronin and the Central Michigan defense is working to make sure every moment they’re on the field is a miserable one for the opposing offense. 

“Change is hard,” Cronin said. “Human beings resist change, in general. And our guys have really welcomed us in and embraced what we're doing and they're completely bought in and there's no resistance. And that just makes our job 10 times easier and it makes it a lot of fun to go to work every day.”